Chapter 3: Thirty Feet of Trouble
There were a lot of things Maribel could handle: magical combustion, sarcastic pixies, and even the occasional detention from a professor who could sneeze lighting.
But sharing a magically mandated thirty-foot radius with a brooding undead ex-overlord who walked like he was on his way to judge your life choices?
That was new.
"You're walking too fast," she huffed, jogging to keep up as Lucien glided through the vaulted halls of the Academy. His robes swirled behind him like ominous storm clouds that had read too much Shakespeare.
"I walk at a perfectly reasonable pace for someone not flouncing around in boot-heels held together with bubblegum," he said without slowing.
"Excuse me," she snapped, "but these boots are enchanted for style and structural sarcasm."
"That explains the glitter trail you're leaving behind."
"Shut up. It's stress glitter."
Lucien muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "arcane catastrophe in lipstick."
They passed a pair of wide-eyed first-years, who promptly burst into giggles the moment they saw the glowing soul-thread trailing between the two.
"Aww," one of them whispered, "are you bonded?"
Lucien snarled.
Maribel waved. "It's not romantic. It's cursed! He's literally dead."
The girls shrieked and ran.
Maribel sighed. "I'm never getting a study partner again, am I?"
The Council had generously (read: grudgingly) relocated Maribel to Lucien's tower to avoid unnecessary reality shredding.
Unfortunately, Lucien's tower turned out to be a gothic nightmare made of obsidian stone, lit with spectral fire, and decorated exclusively in grimoires, necromantic relics, and furniture that looked like it had opinions about your soul.
"I can't sleep in here," she whispered that night, standing at the edge of the enormous guest bed shaped like a sarcophagus. "This place is aggressively dead."
Lucien sat by the window reading a book titled Soulbinding for the Socially Unprepared. "You may request a spectral blanket. Or scream into the pillow. That's what most guests do."
"You have guests?!"
"Just one. Once. They left as a shadow."
Maribel blinked. "Okay, no offense, but you're about as comforting as a cursed music box."
Lucien didn't respond. But the corner of his mouth twitched.
The next morning, Maribel woke to the smell of something... burning.
Lucien stood in the kitchen—if it could be called that—holding what looked like a haunted teapot and a scorched pan of eggs that were possibly hissing.
"Breakfast," he said, grim.
Maribel eyed the blackened sludge on the plate. "You cooked?"
"I reanimated them. Briefly."
She sat down slowly. "This is weirdly touching. You tried to make food. That's almost human."
"I was human. Once."
"Yeah, yeah. Before the brooding, the bone magic, and the 'I sleep in a crypt because beds are too cheerful' phase."
He handed her a fork. "Eat. Or I'll consider this a failed diplomacy effort."
She took a tentative bite. It was... crunchy.
"Lucien?"
"Yes?"
"This is soap."
He sighed. "I suspected as much. The spice jars are cursed."
Despite the chaos, the soul-bond began to... settle. It pulsed less often. The headaches dulled. And something unexpected began to grow in the space between arguments and awkward breakfasts:
A weird sort of understanding.
Lucien watched Maribel work—really work. She cataloged relics meticulously, asked sharp questions, and even learned to defuse a spiteful amulet by insulting its ex-owner's beard.
And Maribel, despite every inclination to mock him, noticed how Lucien never forgot a detail. How he paused to explain the oldest spells. How he treated every soul-bound item not with coldness, but... reverence.
"I didn't think liches cared," she said one afternoon, watching him delicately place a grief-bound locket into a containment field.
Lucien didn't look up. "We don't stop caring. We just get very good at hiding."
The silence that followed was longer than usual. And warmer.
Then came the monster.
It started as a soft rumble in the Vault walls. A heartbeat behind the stones. A breath beneath the runes.
Lucien froze mid-lecture. "Did you hear that?"
Maribel had just finished sorting cursed earrings by murderous intent. "Hear what? The ominous heartbeat or the moaning floorboards?"
The lights dimmed. Something heavy thudded behind the artifact cases.
Maribel reached for her wand. "Please tell me that's not Kevin again."
"Worse," Lucien murmured, stepping in front of her. "That sound belongs to a Vault Wraith."
"A what now?"
"They form when two cursed relics resonate improperly. Usually during lunar convergence or—"
A wall exploded.
Dark mist surged in, coalescing into a massive, shrieking shape with glowing red eyes and way too many teeth.
"Okay!" Maribel shouted, backpedaling. "Less history, more punching it with spells!"
Lucien hurled a blast of necrotic flame, narrowly missing the wraith's mouthful of snarls. Maribel ducked behind a shattered shelf, aimed her wand, and yelled, "Lumora kaboomus!"
A ball of pink lightning exploded across the room—blinding, chaotic, and sparkling.
The wraith screamed and recoiled, clearly offended by the color scheme.
Lucien looked mildly impressed. "Where did you learn that?"
"I made it up! Glitter is great for distraction!"
Together, they wove spells—light and shadow, chaos and precision. The bond between them hummed, guiding their movements in eerie synchronicity.
Lucien whispered a binding chant. Maribel added sparkle-powered shielding.
With a final synchronized strike, they blasted the creature back into containment.
The Vault went still.
Then—crack.
The bond between them pulsed.
And Lucien collapsed.